Freddie Owens - Then Like the Blind Man - Orbie's Story

Willis smiled.

“See now! You gots to WATCH out fo da good!” Moses said.

I looked at Willis’s foot. I thought about how good his singing was the other day in the chicken house, how strange and peaceful it had made me feel. Maybe good things did come from the bad.

I couldn’t see anything good coming out of Daddy’s death though. And what about Old Man Harlan and Reverend Pennycall? They hated Moses. Where was the good in that? There was a ladder lying on the ground. Moses picked it up and set it against the house. He climbed up and started scraping off what remained of the old paint.

Willis smiled a wide, wide smile.

I whipped the stick through the air in front of him and went the other way.

Next morning, I was out on the porch drawing, and there was Willis again. This time he was sitting with his back against the Jesus Tree. He had a pad of paper and was drawing too. How long he’d been sitting there I didn’t know.

I tried to go back with what I was doing, drawing a sailing ship on a rough ocean with big waves and whales, but I couldn’t think of where I had left off.

Willis pulled himself up on his walking stick, and came over to where I was. “Dis fo-fo-fo you,” he said in a quiet little voice. He slid his pad of paper down next to me on the porch.

What was there was a picture of me, sitting on Granny and Granpaw’s porch with a drawing pad in my hands. It was drawn only with a pencil, but it looked real. The boy in Willis’s picture looked just like me. The house looked just like the house. The porch did too.

“You want to look at my comic books?” I pushed the pile over to him. “You can look at my comic books if you want.”

He bent his head sideways and smiled.

“There’s Superman and Flash Gordon,” I said.

“Who-who dey?”

“Don’t you know Superman? He’s on TV. You know. Faster than a speeding bullet?”

“Marshall barber shop got TV,” Willis said. “In town. Can’t go dare doh.”

“How come?” I asked.

“White folk.”

“White folks won’t let you?”

“Uh huh,” Willis said. He picked up one of my comic books.

Superman was on the front.

“That’s him,” I said. “Superman.” I looked at the drawing Willis made. “This is good Willis. You draw good.”

Willis sat down on the edge of the porch. He smiled. Then he looked at the comic book. Sideways.

Willis and me got to be friends. All the rest of that week and on into the next, we played. We had a corncob fight in the barn. It wasn’t fair though, because of Willis’s potato foot. He couldn’t throw fast. I hit him in the eye. Granny made us quit. Then we played like there was a murderer in the barn. I told Willis I thought the barn looked like a skull.

“There could be a murderer in there,” I said. “For real!”

“Uh huh,” Willis said. “Dey could be.”

We went like detectives then and tried to find him out. We played good that way.

Granny’s calendar said June 29. It was Saturday. We had just finished breakfast and were out on the back porch. Elvis and Johnny came up to the back porch steps and made their heads go cockeyed, trying to look where I was. “I’ve been feeding them,” I said. “They might be in a beauty contest. That’s Elvis. And that’s Johnny. See how Elvis has long hair? Johnny’s hair is short.”

Willis looked at me like I was crazy.

“Sometimes they follow me,” I said. “You want to see something?” I went into the kitchen and got me a piece of loaf-bread. When I came back out, Granny was standing at the bottom of the steps with a basket of clothes under her arm.

Elvis and Johnny had jumped up on the porch.

“Them chickens better not shit on my canning jars,” Granny said.

“They won’t,” I said. “Watch. Watch how they do!” I tore off two pieces of loaf-bread and put them on the railing. Elvis and Johnny, right away, jumped up there and pecked up the bread. They bent their heads cockeyed, waiting, trying to see if I had any more bread and what I was going to do with it.

“I never seen the like,” Granny said.

I tore off two more pieces of the bread and put the rest in my shirt pocket. I held the pieces up in the air, one in each hand. “Flap your wings!”

Elvis and Johnny flapped their wings. They did it, both of them, at the same time. I fed them the bread.

“Lord God,” Granny said.

“They do it by themselves, Granny. I just hold out the bread.”

Willis nodded his head like he seen it all before. Like he knew all about it.

The railing ran along the length of the porch even with my shoulders. “Watch this.” I went up to where the chickens stood and turned around. I broke off two more pieces of bread and held them up, one over each shoulder. The chickens hopped onto my shoulders then and I fed them the bread. I made myself stiff so they wouldn’t fall. “All you have to do is feed them.”

Willis smiled with all his teeth.

I turned around then to face the railing. “Fly!” The chickens jumped out over the railing into the yard, flapping their wings.

“The Lord as my witness.” Granny laughed. “They’ll shore win that beauty contest now!”

A couple days later Willis came over. He wanted me to go with him down to the creek. I told him I didn’t know how to swim — plus I said I wasn’t about to get on any mule.

“Aw now,” Granny said from the porch. “Chester there’s gentle as a pup.” Chester looked at me with his big sad eyes. He was a giant with a giant curved back and a giant rump with a rough black tail that kept swishing at the flies that were buzzing all around.

“He might buck me,” I said.

Granny laughed. “Willis won’t let him do that. Willis been riding mules ever since he was old enough to stand.” Granny went and grabbed a chair off the porch. She set it down next to Chester. “Come on Willis. Show Orbie.” Willis got up on the chair and grabbed hold of Chester’s neck hairs. He pulled himself up and over and onto Chester’s back easy as pie. He sat up tall and straight, his coveralls puffed out around him. “See?” Granny said. “You can do that much, can’t you? Forget about that creek. Just go for a ride.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I won’t let you fall,” Granny said. She helped me climb up on the chair. Willis put his arm down for me. I took hold of it and pulled myself up. All of a sudden Chester stepped away and I slipped. “Hold on there!” Granny yelled. I held on and jumped and kicked my leg over — Willis laughing and pulling at me — until all at once I was up.

“That wasn’t so bad now, was it?” Granny said. “Hold on to Willis!”

I was already pressed right up against him. Skinny black arms. Black monkey arms.

Granny was grinning from ear to ear. “How do you feel up there?”

“Good!” I almost shouted. I was way tall, way taller than Granny and almost as tall as the Jesus Tree.

“I told you didn’t I?” She handed me up a jug of water. “Take this out to Granpaw. He’ll be wanting something cold.”

Chester turned toward the road. He smelled like hot pee and shoe leather. His back — warm from being in the hot sun — bulged big as a barrel between my legs. I had to grab around Willis’s waist with one hand and hold the jar with the other. Willis laughed. Chester’s feet pounded and scraped over rocks and weeds, past the well, out to the road. The big bones of his rump lifted and sank. I sat up tall like Willis, stretched my head over Willis’s shoulder and rubbernecked the road. I felt like a giant with big giant mule legs, stomping over the world.